Explore, Connect, Get Involved!

**Learn about Poland’s rich multicultural past and present. Encounter Poland as a place of 1000 years of shared Polish & Jewish Heritage**

Explore, Connect, Get Involved!A Program of the Taube Centre, Warsaw, Poland

**2014 Grant covers all expenses aside from airfare for this 11-day program**
Supported by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs – 2014 Polonia Grants, with additional support by the Taube Philanthropies.

Experience a unique 11-day immersion in the dynamic and changing world of Polish Culture: including lectures, guided tours, hiking in the Bieszczady Mountains, and a full schedule of musical and cultural events. Meet and connect with young adults – educators, entrepreneurs, writers, artists, activists and students — who are creating the new Polish culture today, and building a vibrant Jewish life in Poland.

**Learn about Poland’s rich multicultural past and present. Encounter Poland as a place of 1000 years of shared Polish & Jewish Heritage**

This initiative, generously supported by Poland’s Foreign Ministry with additional support by Taube Philanthropies, in its program of outreach to Americans whose families emigrated from Poland, understands Poland as a country with a rich multicultural heritage, in which Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Germans and many regional and ethnic groups including Lemko and Roma lived for centuries prior to WWII. Today, Polish cultural and educational institutions are embracing and exploring that rich multicultural and multireligious heritage. The innovative study tour program developed by the Taube Centre in Warsaw, Poland, in cooperation with the Dept. of Slavic Languages & Literatures at UIC, will immerse American students in the dynamic history and cultural space of Poland, allowing them to meet and understand 21st century Poland – and to make lasting life connections!

Two 11-day heritage trips will bring students to Warsaw, the Bieszczady mountains in Southeast Poland, and Krakow. Through meetings with leading representatives of cultural, civic, educational , political, and faith-based organizations, student participants will explore the fascinating and inspiring ways that a diverse and democratic Polish society is being rebuilt once again today. Students will learn how Poland has become a cultural and economic engine of the European Union in only 25 years.

What is new about this program?

Today, Polish Americans and Jewish Americans alike are eager to connect to their European heritage, to visit Poland, and to learn about the complex society and region from which their families came – the European world that shaped the identities they would bring to America. Until now, organized opportunities for college-aged members of Polonia to reconnect with Poland through intensive educational heritage tours have been sparse. This grant was created in 2012 to help change that; and to help Polish and Jewish Americans experience the cultural opening that Poland itself has undergone in the past two decades. Where study programs do already exist, Jewish students interested in their own East European and Polish heritage have not been actively recruited by scholarships targeted at Polish Americans. Our program changes this, and offers an inclusive model of Polonia, and of heritage education, that honors Poland’s history and unique cultural dynamism.

We invite applications from all students interested in exploring their multicultural cultural heritage in Poland, to unpack the richness of Polish history and culture and bring what you learn about Poland back to your communities and families in the US. Be part of a unique movement!

Generous support from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with additional support from the Taube Philanthropies, makes these Summer 2014 study tours available at no cost to participants excluding airfare. Students must arrange travel to Poland, and arrive in Warsaw for the start date of their session. During the 11-day program, all program costs including housing, travel and food are covered by the grant. Summer 2014 trips are limited to two groups of 20 students each. Apply Now!